I find the problem with the carlyle french revolution book is that I get like, tony soprano style heart palpitations after reading a page and a half as I black out from the intense mental and spiritual strain of having your world view sucked into a black hole and spat out the other side.
Example:
"When wild armed men first raised their strongest aloft on the buckler-throne, and with clanging armour and hearts said solemnly: Be thou our acknowledged strongest! In such acknowledged strongest (well named King, Kon-ning, canning, or *man that was able*) what a symbol now shone for them -- significant with the destinies of the world! A symbol of true guidance, in return for loving obedience"
Shitfire. I had to read that whole chapter again. Was there ever such a text that demanded to be ORATED while striding through the library built by your patrilineal great-grandfather? All Carlyle hits this tone.
To me, these two sentences, four paragraphs previous, really heralded what Carlyle was all about:
"The world is all so changed; so much that seemed vigorous has sunk decrepit, so much that was not is beginning to be!—Borne over the Atlantic, to the closing ear of Louis, King by the Grace of God, what sounds are these; muffled ominous, new in our centuries? Boston Harbour is black with unexpected Tea: behold a Pennsylvanian Congress gather; and ere long, on Bunker Hill, DEMOCRACY announcing, in rifle-volleys death-winged, under her Star Banner, to the tune of Yankee-doodle-doo, that she is born, and, whirlwind-like, will envelope the whole world!"
To read a "history" like this as a modern is to be Dave Bowman entering the monolith. "My God, it's full of stars!"
>It is the portrait of our narcissistic ruling class—which, like Hitler at the end of Downfall, was issuing complex, detailed battle orders to an army which did not even exist. It really is worth skimming the whitepaper to see the spectacular level of delusion involved.
"Fact: the US is not China. Fact: nothing like this happened. Fact: if this or anything like it happens here, in 2021, under our glorious new President Joe, I will cheerfully blow Weyl or a lucky recipient of his choice—deeply, and significantly—eye contact."
This is a good one too - I usually read Curtis in the morning, luckily not this one, I would have spit my delicious gourmet instant coffee exhaustion all over the breakfast nook...
Academic markets require a big idea + slogan that can be turned into a franchise that everyone gets and no one disagrees with too much. If you think too much you don't tenure.
Holy words. Truth in every angle. Also *the most righteous takedown I have ever read*. I cannot agree with every paragraph in here or UR, but maybe it is only because I have not had the balls to even test the strength of my own iron. I envy the path and age that made CY, but I WILL henceforth make it a habit to stop backing down.
Curtis probably likes Scott. A lot of Scott's writing is openly flirting with NRx-type stuff without ever pulling the trigger. Also, I disagree with Curtis - I do think that some of Scott's posts will be read in two or three hundred years. 'Meditations on Moloch', 'Who by Very Slow Decay' and 'Radicalizing the Loveless' all come to mind.
> Scott's writing is openly flirting with NRx-type stuff
Are we reading the same guy? In Gray Mirror terminology, Scott is a full-throated, enthusiastic collaborator of the current regime—volunteer class. He wrote about NRx years ago explicitly to try to *move people away from it*. (He failed, so he started banning people. They all do, eventually.)
If this was Soviet Russia in the early 80s, Scott Alexander would be the guy writing earnest papers on how to improve production and increase morale in the next five year plan. He'd write under a pseudonym, because to Scott, *that's transgressive*. Think about that.
At his core, Scott Alexander is a volunteer regime PR hack for midwits, to keep them trusting the regime as it becomes more and more despotic and the failures mount. Almost every post he writes about "problems" with the regime has that purpose: to convince these midwits to stick with the regime and its problems, because it's the best we can do, all other options are worse, trust me. Please! Sure, comrade.
I stand by my earlier suggestion: watching Yarvin expose this guy without holding back would do wonders for people mesmerized by Scott's writing style—and altogether be much more fun to read then this takedown of Weyl. Scott has more rhetorical tics than Obama, so once someone does it, it'll be very very hard for Scott to hide his PR techniques.
And the New York Times article was meant to *increase* Scott's profile (which it did—look at the results). Maybe even give him a certain cachet among the other regime volunteers. A Yarvin takedown could more-or-less destroy that profile. I think he should do it. For the lulz.
I usually enjoy Scott's writing, agree or disagree, and he has an interesting community and discussions - Curtis is referenced there by Scott and his community as much as any place and was my introduction to Moldbug - Scott Alexander isn't the enemy - at the worst you can say he is generally misdirected but without guile. If you don't like his writing style, fine, but that's a very personal preference, as objective as your favorite deli sandwich...
I'm sure that he does like Scott, but “has seen some shit” is explanation enough for laying off him. “Show a little charity towards people who have experienced serious professional consequences due to the New York Times” is the implied dictum, and it's a good one. As for Weyl – Curtis didn’t go after Noah Smith like this. In fact, there is a quite unusual lack of respect for Weyl here – due, I suspect, to Weyl’s ultra-casual distortion of the Holodomor, a real ‘last man’ move.
It made this post a lot of fun. Sometimes you just gotta let thymos rip.
Re Scott Alexander’s place in posterity (supposing that there will be a posterity). If his political-social stuff comes to be seen as a small beer almost-sorta-not-quite nrx, then no-one will read it. They’ll read UR and this substack – the aqua vitae. As a flowering of Less Wrong, it may do better: my guess is that movement rationalism will get at least some attention from the future. Overall I see Scott’s serious writing as modish, which doesn’t mean bad. Scott’s main foray into fiction, Unsong, is idiosyncratic enough that it may well find an audience even in 2221. Plus it doesn’t have a lot of hyperlinks. Twenty-year-old links are a PITA, 200-year-old links will need a freaking critical apparatus.
The entire Rationalist school of thought is without legacy. Everything it does well others do better, and it’s most distinctive feature are the terribly unsightly contortions it makes to avoid flopping out of the mud-puddle and into the ocean.
Wonderful. Perhaps us lowly subs could form a detached, nihilist union of sorts and through the gift of quadratic voting give you one of these scumbag intellectuals to take down once per month - Noah and Glen were delightful, who next?
From the perspective of someone encountering his writing for the first time, chapters 3 and 4, the ones we waited all of August and September for, are more enduring than these takedowns. On the old wordpress site, one of the first UR posts I came across was "Did Barack Obama go to Columbia?". Nothing wrong with it, but easier to dismiss than the open letter. I came back to him a year or so later with the pdf versions of the longer essays, and it's hard to exaggerate how much better those are for the uninitiated. Anyway, I feel like arguing about the most egregious footnote ever is still arguing about footnotes.
I suspected Scott was reading you when the phrase "Russell conjugations" showed up on AC10.
Nice to know it's mutual.
And yeah, holy shit, "not moist". The more soulless the writer, the more his efforts resemble those funny AI essay generators... hey, there's an idea. maybe in the future we can stop being ruled by human experts and just go with whatever the postmodernism generator recommends
Glen named Curtis a year ago here: https://twitter.com/glenweyl/status/1212623511094779905 I have no fucking clue what he is talking about in the thread and based on the reaction from twitter, no one else does either. I will be curious to see if Glen responds to this...
Why is your shit so goddamn fun to read? What the fuck?
Because he models his style after Thomas Carlyle, but toned down a bit for our less literate age.
A few hours with "The French Revolution" left me thinking I wasn't as educated as I had previously believed.
I find the problem with the carlyle french revolution book is that I get like, tony soprano style heart palpitations after reading a page and a half as I black out from the intense mental and spiritual strain of having your world view sucked into a black hole and spat out the other side.
Example:
"When wild armed men first raised their strongest aloft on the buckler-throne, and with clanging armour and hearts said solemnly: Be thou our acknowledged strongest! In such acknowledged strongest (well named King, Kon-ning, canning, or *man that was able*) what a symbol now shone for them -- significant with the destinies of the world! A symbol of true guidance, in return for loving obedience"
Shitfire. I had to read that whole chapter again. Was there ever such a text that demanded to be ORATED while striding through the library built by your patrilineal great-grandfather? All Carlyle hits this tone.
To me, these two sentences, four paragraphs previous, really heralded what Carlyle was all about:
"The world is all so changed; so much that seemed vigorous has sunk decrepit, so much that was not is beginning to be!—Borne over the Atlantic, to the closing ear of Louis, King by the Grace of God, what sounds are these; muffled ominous, new in our centuries? Boston Harbour is black with unexpected Tea: behold a Pennsylvanian Congress gather; and ere long, on Bunker Hill, DEMOCRACY announcing, in rifle-volleys death-winged, under her Star Banner, to the tune of Yankee-doodle-doo, that she is born, and, whirlwind-like, will envelope the whole world!"
To read a "history" like this as a modern is to be Dave Bowman entering the monolith. "My God, it's full of stars!"
It's over a month later, but I came here just to say "Why does reading this shit make me feel so much better about everything?"
>It is the portrait of our narcissistic ruling class—which, like Hitler at the end of Downfall, was issuing complex, detailed battle orders to an army which did not even exist. It really is worth skimming the whitepaper to see the spectacular level of delusion involved.
Holy shit that line was amazing
"Fact: the US is not China. Fact: nothing like this happened. Fact: if this or anything like it happens here, in 2021, under our glorious new President Joe, I will cheerfully blow Weyl or a lucky recipient of his choice—deeply, and significantly—eye contact."
This is a good one too - I usually read Curtis in the morning, luckily not this one, I would have spit my delicious gourmet instant coffee exhaustion all over the breakfast nook...
Yep. At least once while reading I sprayed Amarone through both nostrils all over my fava beans!
Daaayum, you got that gourmet-ass shiiit
is substack giving you data on what % of people read up to what % of the article? if so, you should turn that shit off :P
this was otherwise delightful, thank you for publicly humiliating everybody I despise
Curtis you’re just so fucking good.
Funny that it was this article that made me succumb to the grift ...
Also known as "How Weyl got Pwned"
Fine, fine - take my money please.
If a genius is born every minute, one must be destroyed every two.
Academic markets require a big idea + slogan that can be turned into a franchise that everyone gets and no one disagrees with too much. If you think too much you don't tenure.
These have been some spicy poasts lately. Very enjoyable reads.
I really hope we can stop doing this at some point though:
"So: test everyone who could have the virus, and lock them up for two weeks. Fact: China did this. Fact: it worked for China."
Indeed, Chinese numbers never lie. Just like those rice harvest quotas: totally accurate and not fabricated.
Holy words. Truth in every angle. Also *the most righteous takedown I have ever read*. I cannot agree with every paragraph in here or UR, but maybe it is only because I have not had the balls to even test the strength of my own iron. I envy the path and age that made CY, but I WILL henceforth make it a habit to stop backing down.
I'm disappointed that Scott Alexander was left unmolested here—Weyl is a nobody, unworthy of your attention. You have bigger fish to fry.
Curtis probably likes Scott. A lot of Scott's writing is openly flirting with NRx-type stuff without ever pulling the trigger. Also, I disagree with Curtis - I do think that some of Scott's posts will be read in two or three hundred years. 'Meditations on Moloch', 'Who by Very Slow Decay' and 'Radicalizing the Loveless' all come to mind.
> Scott's writing is openly flirting with NRx-type stuff
Are we reading the same guy? In Gray Mirror terminology, Scott is a full-throated, enthusiastic collaborator of the current regime—volunteer class. He wrote about NRx years ago explicitly to try to *move people away from it*. (He failed, so he started banning people. They all do, eventually.)
If this was Soviet Russia in the early 80s, Scott Alexander would be the guy writing earnest papers on how to improve production and increase morale in the next five year plan. He'd write under a pseudonym, because to Scott, *that's transgressive*. Think about that.
At his core, Scott Alexander is a volunteer regime PR hack for midwits, to keep them trusting the regime as it becomes more and more despotic and the failures mount. Almost every post he writes about "problems" with the regime has that purpose: to convince these midwits to stick with the regime and its problems, because it's the best we can do, all other options are worse, trust me. Please! Sure, comrade.
I stand by my earlier suggestion: watching Yarvin expose this guy without holding back would do wonders for people mesmerized by Scott's writing style—and altogether be much more fun to read then this takedown of Weyl. Scott has more rhetorical tics than Obama, so once someone does it, it'll be very very hard for Scott to hide his PR techniques.
And the New York Times article was meant to *increase* Scott's profile (which it did—look at the results). Maybe even give him a certain cachet among the other regime volunteers. A Yarvin takedown could more-or-less destroy that profile. I think he should do it. For the lulz.
I usually enjoy Scott's writing, agree or disagree, and he has an interesting community and discussions - Curtis is referenced there by Scott and his community as much as any place and was my introduction to Moldbug - Scott Alexander isn't the enemy - at the worst you can say he is generally misdirected but without guile. If you don't like his writing style, fine, but that's a very personal preference, as objective as your favorite deli sandwich...
I'm sure that he does like Scott, but “has seen some shit” is explanation enough for laying off him. “Show a little charity towards people who have experienced serious professional consequences due to the New York Times” is the implied dictum, and it's a good one. As for Weyl – Curtis didn’t go after Noah Smith like this. In fact, there is a quite unusual lack of respect for Weyl here – due, I suspect, to Weyl’s ultra-casual distortion of the Holodomor, a real ‘last man’ move.
It made this post a lot of fun. Sometimes you just gotta let thymos rip.
Re Scott Alexander’s place in posterity (supposing that there will be a posterity). If his political-social stuff comes to be seen as a small beer almost-sorta-not-quite nrx, then no-one will read it. They’ll read UR and this substack – the aqua vitae. As a flowering of Less Wrong, it may do better: my guess is that movement rationalism will get at least some attention from the future. Overall I see Scott’s serious writing as modish, which doesn’t mean bad. Scott’s main foray into fiction, Unsong, is idiosyncratic enough that it may well find an audience even in 2221. Plus it doesn’t have a lot of hyperlinks. Twenty-year-old links are a PITA, 200-year-old links will need a freaking critical apparatus.
The entire Rationalist school of thought is without legacy. Everything it does well others do better, and it’s most distinctive feature are the terribly unsightly contortions it makes to avoid flopping out of the mud-puddle and into the ocean.
"Fans of right wing extremist demand more molestation."
Wonderful. Perhaps us lowly subs could form a detached, nihilist union of sorts and through the gift of quadratic voting give you one of these scumbag intellectuals to take down once per month - Noah and Glen were delightful, who next?
Curtis can't stop throwing these haymakers! Who will he body next??
I don’t get Moldbug’s passivism. He has been really showing off his pugilistic prowess of late against all comers.
For the first 3 months of this substack, I thought I was making a charitable donation. Now, I’m spending all my free time consuming these essays.
From the perspective of someone encountering his writing for the first time, chapters 3 and 4, the ones we waited all of August and September for, are more enduring than these takedowns. On the old wordpress site, one of the first UR posts I came across was "Did Barack Obama go to Columbia?". Nothing wrong with it, but easier to dismiss than the open letter. I came back to him a year or so later with the pdf versions of the longer essays, and it's hard to exaggerate how much better those are for the uninitiated. Anyway, I feel like arguing about the most egregious footnote ever is still arguing about footnotes.
I suspected Scott was reading you when the phrase "Russell conjugations" showed up on AC10.
Nice to know it's mutual.
And yeah, holy shit, "not moist". The more soulless the writer, the more his efforts resemble those funny AI essay generators... hey, there's an idea. maybe in the future we can stop being ruled by human experts and just go with whatever the postmodernism generator recommends
Glen named Curtis a year ago here: https://twitter.com/glenweyl/status/1212623511094779905 I have no fucking clue what he is talking about in the thread and based on the reaction from twitter, no one else does either. I will be curious to see if Glen responds to this...